


One Time Too Many

by impudent_strumpet



Series: Before The Dark [4]
Category: Plague Tale: Innocence (Video Game)
Genre: Abused Children, Abusive Father, Attempted Murder, Beating, Brother-Sister Relationships, Brotherly Love, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Daggers, Dialogue Heavy, Drunkenness, Escape, Family Dynamics, Family Issues, Future Character Death, Headcanon, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Introspection, Killing, Kinslaying, Late Night Conversations, Late at Night, Melie is an expert at it, More shameless ASOIAF references, Most of the time, My first fic from Arthur's POV, One Shot, Other, POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited, Past Child Abuse, Patricide, Physical Abuse, Plans, Pre-Canon, Protective Older Brothers, Protectiveness, Running Away, Sneaking, Sneaking Around, Sneaking Out, Superstition, Teenagers, They'll definitely find it, Throwing the Melicia shippers a bone again, Twins, Violent Thoughts, Weapons, at least i hope it is, based on a headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-30
Updated: 2019-07-30
Packaged: 2020-07-26 01:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20035258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impudent_strumpet/pseuds/impudent_strumpet
Summary: It had been Arthur's idea for the twins to run away from their abusive father. Mélie had a different one in mind...that might have led to her tragic fate.





	One Time Too Many

**Author's Note:**

> I CAN'T STOP PUTTING OUT FICS XD Maybe not my best, but just something inspired by a headcanon I thought of while drawing what you see below.

"We're going to be late again," Arthur warned his twin as they were on their way home from looting. "Papa won't be happy."  
  
Mélie sighed. "I swear, if he beats us one more time I'm gonna kill him."  
  
Not only were they late, as they discovered upon walking in, their father had been in his cups again.  
  
"Where the hell have y'been, ya worthless brats?!" he shouted as his fists came down on them, over and over.   
  
As always, Arthur tried to shield his beloved sister, smaller than him and younger by about ten minutes, with his own body and ended up taking more bruises in the process. Even when their father finally stopped beating them, he kept shouting at them as the brother helped his sister to stand back up, his arm protectively around her shoulder. She glared at their father as always, but...Arthur noticed something different in her narrowed, icy blue eyes then. Something fierce and dangerous shone in them...something bloodthirsty and filled with rage.  
  
Practically the moment their father turned his back to them, that was when Mélie slowly started to unsheathe her dagger, her fingers curled around the hilt and her thumb on top of it.  
  
No. That wouldn't be good. She was only angry right now, not thinking straight. For her own safety, Arthur put his hand over hers so she lowered the blade.

~

  
  
The redheaded boy was unable to sleep that night, his bruises throbbing. As he rolled over where he lay, he just faintly noticed the shadow of his sister, who was still awake...crouching towards their unconscious father in the darkness. In the faint moonlight he caught sight of the same fire in her eyes there had been before, surrounded by violet bruises...and the glint of her dagger's blade as she raised it.  
  
Until he raced over, grabbed both of her wrists, and pinned her down.  
  
"Mélie! What are you doing?!" he whisper-shouted at her.  
  
"I've had enough, brother," Mélie said. "I mean it."  
  
Arthur's eyes widened. "Were you really going to...?"  
  
The twins' father had beaten his two children countless times before, and both of them were fourteen now, nearly a man and woman grown. But everyone had a breaking point...perhaps, for Mélie, this had been one time too many.  
  
"Yeah. I'm going to kill him," Mélie hissed, pushing him away. "Don't try to stop me."  
  
"Mélie...you can't." Arthur gripped her wrist firmly, where her hand was clenching her dagger.  
  
"Why not?" she snapped.  
  
Arthur glanced at their father, then back at his sister. "It's really tempting for me too, believe me. But...the kinslayer is cursed in the eyes of gods and men."  
  
Mélie scoffed. "That's just something nobles say to keep younger sons from killing the heirs, or sons killing fathers to get the lordship quicker."  
  
"It's no small thing, to kill your own blood."  
  
"I don't care about that!"  
  
"Are you sure?" Arthur asked. "Murder is treated much more harshly than thieving. You'd be alright with things being even worse than they are? With being caught and made to rot in prison...or sentenced to death?" He gripped her shoulder with his other hand. "Because I'm not. So I can't let you."  
  
The murderous glint in her eyes dulled, just a little, to make way for a hint of despair as the grip on her blade loosened and her shoulders relaxed. "What will we do, then? I can't take any more of this."  
  
Arthur thought of the abandoned cellar he had found. "We can run away from here. I know a place. It's not like Papa will chase after us."  
  
Mélie's brow furrowed. "Are you sure?"  
  
"Trust me, Mélie."  
  
His sister was silent for a few moments, as if thinking this over. She still seemed angry and indignant at first, but then conflicted...and finally resigned.  
  
"...Alright. Let's go, then," she said.  
  
Arthur breathed a sigh of relief as he quietly led her out the door and on the way to what would become their new hideout. "It will be better. You'll see."  
  
He knew they would have to steal even more than they had before, just to survive. Thievery would become their livelihood. They would have to stay hidden, too, if the lord who owned the land on which they had worked was not happy about two of his laborers, as much a part of that land as a plant that grew on it, suddenly disappearing. Neither of them could marry, as most peasants could not, nor could Arthur take up a trade without leaving his twin behind. Many impoverished girls became harlots, but Mélie would not and perhaps could not...her stubborn, spitfire pride, marked disinterest in men, and unwillingness to be separated from her twin would not allow it. The two really had no other choice but this, and all they had now was each other.  
  
This was not the first time Arthur had stopped his fierce and often impulsive twin from doing something stupid or dangerous or both, nor would it probably be the last time. He had stopped her now from shedding the blood of their own kin and reaping any messy legal consequences, luckily.  
  
But...one could not be a murderer in their heart and count themselves blameless just because they did not carry out the deed. Those in history who had shed the blood of their kin had been met with the evil eyes and stinging words of those known to them everywhere they walked, such was the stigma of kinslaying. As for the tales of those whose hearts were blackened by murderous intent or other horrible deeds...they always, one way or another, met some disastrous end, and not death by plague or sickness or aging like most men. They would fall victim to betrayal or a revenge plot...be taken by and left to the cruel mercy of torturers or even more depraved men than themselves...receive some frightening prophecy they would do everything in their power to avoid, only for it to come true...come to lose everything they ever loved and wander through life all alone...  
  
Those were just tales, based off nothing but superstition, Mélie would have said. But Arthur always thought one could never be too careful... Though he had been sorely tempted himself, he would not have killed their father, a drunkard and an abuser though the man may have been. But Mélie would have, as he had just found out. Just one quick slash across his throat as he lay passed out in his cups, she had likely been thinking. Her heart was the poisoned one of a kinslayer...and that was no small thing. The very first murder had been a kinslaying, as the Scripture said. Just tales or not, it had to be worse to kill one's own blood than to kill a stranger. When was such a person damned? When the deed was done and the blood on their hands? When they drew the blade? When the intent crossed their mind?  
  
It made Arthur wonder what fate lay ahead for his sister.  
  
Even so, he would protect her until the end.

**Author's Note:**

> Yup, shameless ASOIAF references. You might even recognize what kinslayers I referred to from that series here. A possible explanation for why Mélie meets the worst fate imaginable for her by the end of the game >:)


End file.
